Krysten Ritter has dropped a few pretty big hints that she will be reprising the role of Jessica Jones in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but so far, nothing has been officially announced.
We're sure Miss Jones will make her way back to our screens at some point, but in the meantime, fans of the hard-hitting, hard-drinking P.I. can catch up with her adventures in the first of a new series of Marvel Crime fiction novels from Hyperion Avenue.
Written by #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Jewell, Breaking the Dark: A Jessica Jones Marvel Crime Novel finds Jones travelling to a small village in the British countryside to investigate the strange case of Amber Randall's twins, who returned to America changed after a visit to their father.
The synopsis doesn't give too much away, but it sounds like Jessica may be walking into a Children of the Damned-like situation, and Luke Cage also gets a mention.
"The twins don't act like themselves; they now have flawless skin, have lost their distinctive tics and habits, and keep talking about a girl named Belle. So, Jessica goes to meet this mysterious Belle, who lives a curiously isolated life in an old farmhouse with a strange woman who claims to be her guardian. Can this unworldly teenager really be responsible for the Randall twins' new personas? Why does the strange little village of Barton Wallop seem to harbor dark energies and mysteries in its tight-knit community?
A mother’s intuition is never wrong. And Jessica knows that nothing in life is perfect—not these kids, not her on-again, off-again relationship with Luke Cage, and certainly not Jessica herself. But even as she tries to buy into the idea that better days are ahead, Jessica Jones has seen all too clearly that behind every promise of perfection trails a dark, dangerous shadow."
Marvel.com has shared a lengthy excerpt. You can check out a few chapters below, and click here for the rest.
"JESSICA TURNS ONTO her side and blinks into the darkness. The drapes are wide open, but the sky outside is so dark that they may as well be shut. It is not nighttime, but a storm is brewing over Hell's Kitchen, black and bruised and heavy. The clock by her bed tells her that it is one minute past nine. Her head tells her that she had her last drink about four hours ago. She drags herself from her bed and listens to the first distant rumbles of thunder, coming from somewhere far away from the city.
Coffee. Black, strong, burned. A bowl of Cheerios with ice-cold milk from the fridge. The storm moves closer, the sky turns electric-white, and Jessica jumps—slopping milk from the bowl onto the floor—as a clap of thunder splits the universe in half. For a moment she wonders about a thunderstorm this early in the day, but then she thinks, why not? The whole world has felt so dramatic lately, people seem so riled up all the time, always looking for fights and division.
Things move so fast, theories come and go, superstars are born and get canceled, technology, fashions, politics all spin in dizzying, insane cycles, and meanwhile the planet is set to burn to cinders, and, yes, why not a brooding, sinister morning storm over Hell's Kitchen on a cool October morning, why not? Her neighbor Julius just adopted a cat, then three days later had to go away to visit a sick relative. She owed Julius a favor and said she'd feed it for him. It's named Speckles. She has a 9:45 in her calendar and it is now 9:20. She needs a shower and another coffee, but first she thinks she'll go down the hall and deal with Speckles.
She grabs the key to Julius's apartment and walks barefoot down the hall, leaving her door on the latch behind her. She wears a T-shirt that still smells of last night's chicken wings where she'd rubbed her greasy fingertips, but also smells of Luke's laundry detergent. Luke is her not-quite-boyfriend. Actually, her not-at-all-boyfriend, but boyfriend enough for her to have ended up at some point or other with one of his T-shirts in her apartment. And he really does do magic things with his laundry, she doesn't know what or how, but everything he wears smells so good."
Breaking the Dark: A Jessica Jones Marvel Crime Novel will be available in the United States from Hyperion Avenue on July 2, 2024 and Penguin Random House UK in the United Kingdom on July 4, 2024.